Chapter 22
While we waited for Mr. Jennings to get here, the three of us walked over to Seasonal Sweets, where Victoria bought us hot chocolates so that we didn’t freeze to death.
(Now that the car probably wasn’t going to blow up, this seemed like the next significant danger.) We sat under a big industrial-sized umbrella outside, close to the patio heater and wrapped in the scarves rescued from the back seat, watching the sadly flashing hazard lights on Victoria’s car.
“You don’t have to wait with us,” I said to Grayson after a minute of awkward silence. “I mean, you can. I don’t mind. Actually, I’d like you to. But you don’t have to.”
“Well, my dad’s on his way. So it doesn’t make sense for me to walk.” He sipped his drink. “This is really good. You were right. It does taste like chocolate sunshine.”
I turned to look at him fully. He had a little whipped cream on his lip. I motioned the universal motion for you have something there, and he ducked his face and wiped it with his thumb.
Abruptly, Victoria stood up. “I have to go inside for a minute.” When the door closed behind her, a text buzzed on my phone.
Victoria:
MAKE IT COUNT.
“Hey,” Grayson said. “I’m sorry for ditching the booth. I feel bad about it.”
I wrapped my fingers around my cup of salted caramel hot chocolate, letting the heat flow through me. “You don’t have to apologize. I understand.”
“Okay.” He took another sip of his drink. “Mrs. Kauffman let me look at it today. It’s nice. You did a good job.”
I forced a smile. “It won’t win the contest, but I did what I could. Having your sketches helped a lot. It would just be mountains of glitter if I’d been totally in charge.”
“Glitter would have been cute, too.”
And then neither of us spoke for what felt like several long years.
He looked down, like he was committing every puff of whipped cream to memory.
I cleaned my glasses.
It was so weird how over text—or even on the phone—we could just talk and talk about anything.
I mean, I guarded anything remotely identifiable like it was a state secret, but still.
He’d finished reading his story to me—what he had of it—and we’d gotten through a whole library book about an artist whose drawings came to life.
But in person now … neither of us knew what to say. Well, I knew what I should say, but ugh, how?
Make it count, Victoria had texted.
She was right. I might not be able to tell him that I was Cardinal—not yet—but I could do the other thing I needed to do.
“If anyone should apologize,” I said, not looking up from my drink, “it should be me. I shouldn’t have said those things about you. I didn’t even like what I was saying. Or believe it. It was camouflage—remember? But that doesn’t matter. It hurt you. I never wanted that. And I’m so, so sorry.”
I knew I should look up and say it to his face, but the shame was unbearable.
And then, in case I never got another chance to tell him: “You were the only one who was still nice to me after ‘Deer Hill Dirt’ went up. That meant a lot. It still does. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I want you to know that I regret it more than anything.
And I told Mary Heather and Kat this afternoon that I would not be going along with their crap ever again, for what that’s worth.
I’m going to be my own person. And hopefully, I won’t say mean things about people I like anymore. ”
Another thirty or so years passed by.
When he spoke, his voice was so soft I almost didn’t hear him under the sound of rain pattering against the giant umbrella. “I heard everything you said earlier, when Mary Heather and Kat confronted you. It was … brave.”
I waited a moment in case he had anything to add to that, but apparently he didn’t. He just took another drink of his hot chocolate.
“I guess you’re going to Jolly-Days tomorrow,” he said finally.
“Yeah. I’ll be at the booth, trying to make random people sign up for library cards. ‘There’s a book lover in everybody.’ What about you?”
“I’ll be there. And I’ll tell people about the library, too.” He flashed a faint smile. Then his phone buzzed, and he glanced at the screen. “That’s my dad. He’s almost here.”
Well, that was that. I didn’t know if I’d made it count, but I’d done my best.
I was running out of time, though. I could see the end of my “anonymous” friendship with him as clearly as I might have seen a meteor speeding toward Earth, growing bigger and bigger in the sky.
Impact was imminent.
After he knew who I really was and we never spoke again, I hoped he remembered this conversation.
I stood up. “I’ll get my sister.”
While Mr. Jennings was fussing with the radiator and asking Grayson to shine a flashlight here or there—with Victoria and me peering over to see what, exactly, they were doing—Mom called Victoria back.
Then, she and Dad were also peering into the car, thanking Grayson and Mr. Jennings for their kindness and help.
After the car was fixed—and Mom paid Mr. Grayson for his work and the enormous jug of antifreeze he’d poured into Victoria’s car—we all went home.
Everyone followed behind Victoria and me, just in case, but we were fine.
Zooms was even waiting in the window, probably annoyed her wet food was late and wondering if she needed to barf on someone’s pillow in protest.
Victoria pulled into her spot. Mom and Dad pulled into their spot. And as we got out, I glanced at the Jenningses’ car just in time to see Grayson waving at me—and then his hand dropping abruptly.
Several minutes later, my whole family was sitting around the table. (Except for Zooms, who was on the floor, dining on her stinky wet food.)
I picked at my dinner, thinking about that talk with Grayson. Did he believe me? Did he care?
“You have to be more careful.” Dad was using his stern voice. “That could have gone very differently.”
I looked up. “What did I do?”
“He’s talking to me.” Victoria frowned at me like she was wondering where I’d been for the last few minutes. “I’m getting lectured because of the radiator incident.”
That was weird. I couldn’t think of a single time our parents had ever lectured Victoria. I hadn’t even known it was possible. This had to break some kind of years-long streak for her.
“Oh okay.” Well, I couldn’t miss this. I set my own thoughts aside while Mom and Dad reminded Victoria to double- and triple-check things in her car, especially if she wanted to drive other people around. And when she went to school, they admonished her, it would be much harder for them to help.
Victoria took it like a champ, just nodding and agreeing. “You’re right. I’ll be more careful.”
“Plus, we can’t afford to help you with a new car right now,” Mom was saying. “The basement was really expensive to deal with. We’ll be paying it off for the next two years.”
“So is it fixed now?” I asked quickly, redirecting their attention back to their favorite subject. “What did they do down there?”
As expected, Dad perked right up. “It’s really cool, actually! We still need to do some cleaning, but you can see the beams if you want… .”
I tuned out and glanced at Victoria. She flashed a grateful smile. After dinner, we took care of dishes and dining room cleanup together.
Honestly, she was a great sister. She’d done a lot of listening over the last few weeks, and I kind of hated that she’d be moving to another state next fall.
Just as I was wiping the table, my phone buzzed.
Grayson:
So about the princess …
(The one in my story.)
I think things with her might be a little more complicated
Like, she still betrayed the knight but … maybe she didn’t mean to.
Maybe she was sort of forced to, to defend herself from some manipulative courtiers
It doesn’t make what she did right, but it does make her more … human
Know what I mean?
I sat down on the floor, directly in a pile of crumbs.
Victoria looked down at me. “Are you okay? There’s a chair right there.” She pointed.
“Chairs don’t matter to me.”
“Okay, very postmodern. I respect it.” She started sweeping around me, poking my legs with the bristles.
How could chairs—or anything else—matter? I had to tell Grayson the truth.
Tomorrow.